dabrownman's blog

The last bread we are making for Thanksgiving is Mini’s Rye Bread at 100% hydration sans Chia seeds but adding a Munich Dopplebock, some soaker water, flax seed and yeast water to the mix and deleting the gargantuan pine nuts she found in Chili.  Her bake is found here:

Mini's 100% Dark Rye & Chia Recipe ...Love at 104% hydration

Her times were much faster than mine when it came to development and final proof and I added an hour to each of them and it probably could have been more.  My beer and soaker water was 38 F. The one procedure change was to retard the levain for more than 24 hours in the fridge after the 3rd feeding and then letting it come to room temperature.

We used a regular loaf pan for this bread since we don’t have one thin tall and long like Mini does.  No worries we just have a wide short not nearly as long loaf in the end.  Our baking time was 1 hour and 15 minutes instead of an hour.  Our mini oven only goes in 25 degree increments so we had to bake at 350 F instead of 365 F like she did.  We baked it to 202 F on the inside.

The bread browned up OK and the crust was very hard when it came out of the oven.  !8 hours later, being wrapped on plastic wrap after it cooled the crust has gone softer but still substantial and we ho[e it goes even ,more soft over the next 24 – 30 hours before we slice it.   So have to wait on the crumb shot another day.

This loaf smelled great baking with the aromatic seeds predominating.  We are finishing up making some red and white malt using rye and barley and hope to get around making some SD crackers using rye for one and whole wheat for the other.

White Chicken Green Chili and a smoked pork and cheddar melt sandwich with this bread for lunch.

The crumb came out moist and open or a bread of this kind.   The crumb did soften as the moisture redistributed but was still not nearly as soft as a pumpernickel.  Baking this to 202 F might have bee too high but it still sliced well.  The walnut taste came though well which was an unusual taste for a bread like this.  Perfect for the holidays and putting cheese and meat snacks on.

Formula

The Double T - Grilled Tuna and Talapia

The kind of fall we get in Gilbert, AZ - red and green leat lettuce!

It seems the only time we ever make a plain white bread is for the Thanksgiving croutons we use for the stuffing.  We have all kinds of whole grain SD breads in the freezer; some have nuts, some with seeds, some fruits, some with at least 2 of the 3 and many flush with the works.

We had a little YW levain left over from Friday’s SD /YW rye bake that had already spent a day in fridge and put some more YW and flour in it to make it a little larger and then after it had nearly doubled we refrigerated it again for 2 hours.

This bread was made our usual way.  While the YW levain was warming up we autolysed the dough flour and water with the salt sprinkled on top.  Once it all came together the mix was at 75% hydration when we starter the first of 3 slap and fold sessions of 6, 3 and 1 minute each on 15 minute increments.

We finished the gluten development with 2 sets of S&F’s with  15 minutes rest between them.  After pre-shaping and final shaping into a boule the dough was placed seam side up in a rice floured basket and immediately retarded in the fridge for 12 hours.

We baked it in a 550 F DO that was one size too large for this small bread.  We turned the oven down to 525 F after 5minutes and then down to 500 F after 10 minutes.  At 15 minutes the lid came off for another 5 minutes of 425 F baking, convection this time.

We then removed the bread from the DO since the top was browning way faster than the sides.  We continued to bake for another 10 minutes turning the bread 180 degrees after 5 minutes.

Even thought the sides never browned as dark as we wanted, the inside was reading 210 F so we took it out of the oven to cool on a rack.  The bread blistered well and the bottom was browned perfectly

After slicing into it the still a little crispy crust after the bread cooled we found it thin like baguette.  The crumb was fairly open, very glossy with the holes varied in size and irregular - a typical YW crumb for a white bread - soft and moist even though over baked 5 F trying to get it more brown

Toasted with butter is the best way to eat this bread as, like most non SD white breads, the flavor is lacking otherwise.   Kids would love this bread for sandwiches I’m guessing.   It will make fine croutons for Thanksgiving to mix in with the other more substantial croutons.

Formula

Lucy worked hard, using Varda’s Tzitzel quest as a starting point, to do 3 takes on Tzitzel.  We liked take 2 of the 3 tries to date the best.  But it just wasn’t enough of a full bodied, deep flavored bread to stand up to the kind of smoky mats we like.

With Eric Hanner’s first anniversary of his passing upon us, I couldn’t help but make a stronger rye based on his died minced onions and soaker water we like so much in deli rye breads.

We upped the rye to 50% from 40%, upped the SD and YW levain to 30% of the total from 20% since we decided not to retard this load as we did the others.  Whole grains shot up to 55% a substantial increase too.   This bread was starting to make us happier that usually.

To put the top knot on the other knots, we decided to use Young’s Double Chocolate Stout for much of the dough liquid that wasn’t onion soaker water.  We had a bunch of whole wheat and white whole wheat in the mix too, so we added some VWG and upped the hydration to near 90% from 85% to compensate for the more thirsty whole grains.

The rye sour and YW levains were built separately and the white flour listed was for the YW levain.  Both were retarded for 24 hours at the same time even though the YW was a 1 build affair and the ryes sour was a 3 stage build.

Since we were going to make this bread in one day, we only had time for a 1 hour autolyse but we did do our usual 3 sets of slap and folds and 2 stretch and folds all 15 minutes apart.

We did a light chop on the caraway seeds in the coffee grinder and added them and the multigrain scald and overnight soak in the fridge sand which weighed 150 g wet, on the first set of S& F.  Both were completely incorporated at the end of the 2nd set of S& F’s.

This is a smoked pork carnitas quesidilla  style with caramelized mushrooms and onions, 2 cheeses, and killer home made red salsa...and lets not forget the smoked brisket taco for lunch

We then shaped the dough into and oval and immediately placed it seam side down in the rice floured basket.  The dough proofed for 4 hours before it was refrigerated for1 hour while Big Old Betsy was preheated to 550 F and the (2) lava rocks and water pans for steam were inserted at 525 F

15 minutes after the oven hit 550 F we un-molded the dough onto a peel that was covered in parchment, slashed 3 times and loaded onto the bottom of two stones.  After 5minutes of steam the oven was turned down to 525 F and 5minutes later it was turned down again to 500 F at the 15 minute mark the steam was removed and the oven was turned down to 425 F.

The bread was rotated 180 degrees on the stone every 5 minutes until the bread reached 205 F on the inside when it was removed to the cooling rack.  Total baking without steam was 13 minutes with 28 minutes of baking total.

The bread browned up a deep, brownish, mahogany color and bloomed OK.  It spread more than it sprang indicating it was too high in hydration and possibly slightly over proofed.

It smelled terrific in and out of the oven with the caraway and onions dominating.  Can’t wait to cut into this bread and taste it but we will wait for 24 hours before doing so.  Well, couldn't't wait for 24 hours as usual.  The crust had gone soft over 16 hours wrapped in plastic. The crumb was open soft and moist.  It was more open than I though it would be with so much whole grain rye and scalded berries.

Underneath the breakfast eggs is some white bread baked yesterday.

The flavor of the crust and crumb, the onion coming though so well, were just the way you want them for a bread begging for mustard. pickle and pastrami.   The little yellow flecks of the corn meal is a delight - thanks to Janet for the corn inclusion in the bread.  This is the best Jewish Deli Rye type bread, with a chew of scalded betries, we have managed to date.  Just delicious.  Thanks to Eric for the dried minced onions and re-hydration addition and the slap & fold push that changed my bread baking forever.

The 'mixed grains en pot' are now oer a foot tall! 

We've got 4 pots of tomatoes too.  Lucy says I've gone to pot and she might be right!  This bread made a very nice pepperjack melt, dijon mustard, dill pickle and pastrami sandwich for lunch with the usual salad, veggies and fruits on the side.

Formula

It has been a long time since we have done any YW baking and it was time to refresh the YW after 4 weeks hiding in the fridge.  We decided at the last minute to do a test comparison bake. One with a YW/SD levain and one with just a SD levain.

The YW / SD version had 4% more whole grains.  We wanted to weigh it down a little more than the SD version and we added a multi-grain scald to both since we love whole berry scalds in breads almost as much as w love sprouts.  The YW version was 22% while grain and the SD version was 18%.

Both are a little light on the whole grain side but we also need some croutons for Thanksgiving stuffing too and these loaves should fit the bill well.  The levains were built over 3 stages and then refrigerated for 24 hours after they had risen 255 after the 3rd stage feeding.

Since these were white breads we did a 1 hour autolyse this time.  We did up the hydration a couple of points on the YW version to account for more while grains.  We did follow our usual method of 3 sets of slap and folds (7, 3 and 1minute) and 2 sets of stretch and folds all 15 minutes apart. As soon as the folding was comp, ete the dough was pre-shaped and then shaped into a boule and an oval for the SD/YW version.

Some of this year's lettuce crop in pots

We put the dough seam side down in the baskets hoping to get a natural cracking at the seams when the dough hit the heat and steam the next day ala Ski’s Forkish and David Snyder’s Pugliesi.  The dough was then retarded in the fridge for 16 hours - 4 hours more than we would have liked but that is life.

The dough nearly proofed 100% in the fridge because of the extra 4 hours.  No worries since we had planned to bake it cold right out of the fridge and not to slash it so the stiff cold dough wouldn’t collapse due to any over-proofing.

The dough was un-molded and placed into Big Old Betsy 20 minutes after the oven hit 525 F and the oven had further climbed to 550 F.  It was sandwiched between 2 stones and the mega steam was supplied with two Pyrex pans filled with lava rocks and half full of water that were placed in the oven when it hit 525 F

The bread steamed for 5 minutes at 550 F, 5 minutes at 500 F and 5 minutes at 475 F. After 15 minutes the steam was removed from the oven as it was turned down to 425 F, convection this time.  We rotated the bread 180 degrees every 5 minutes until the bread registered 205 F on the inside - exactly 15 minutes after the steam came out and 30 minutes total baking time.

The bread browned beautifully with huge blisters on the outside of both but more so on the YW / SD oval.  The bread did spring but it was contained within the crust which didn’t crack because it was 100% proofed.  So these are totally unblemished crusts but still very attractive!  The YW/SD appears to have puffed itself up a little more than the SD  boule.

The crumb of the YW / SD was open, soft and moist with a SD tang that was somewhat muted but not missing either.  It is a delicious bread.  We didn't cut into the SD version and froze it whole for Thanksgiving.  This bread made for a nice cotto salami and aged cheddar cheese sandwich for today's lunch. This bread reminds me of Tartine only it has more chew due to the scald.

YW / SD Formula

SD Formula

Lucy got her shots today so she wanted her ears rubbed!

This Friday’s bake started out as 2 bakes which were originally to be completed while we were smoking some brisket and pork sirloin over 12 hours.  Neither bread was to be  retarded but completed within 12 hours – not including the time it took to build the SD and YW levains.

This all in the same day bread is quite unlike our normal efforts to bring out the sour in the SD with retarding but sometimes a SD bread without so much tang is preferred by some others around here besides Lucy and I.

SD left YW right but it is hard to see the yellow color amd thd zest in the YW.

The YW citrus, fruit and nut bread was a Lucy adaptation of Floyd’s current home page post of Thanksgiving Baking Ideas  that featured a chemically leavened Orange, Cranberry and Walnut Bread here that featured a chemically leavened Orange, Cranberry and Walnut Bread here http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/cranberryorangewalnutbread

We really liked the looks and ingredients of Floyd’s bread but, since no sour was needed for this sweet enriched bread we decided to use YW for the leaven.   It has been quite some time since we used any YW from our refrigerated hoard of it and we needed to use some so we could feed the stored remainder to keep it perky.

The SD bread was similar to the ingredient list of the one we did last Friday except cut the whole grains in half but still keeping them all in the levain.  The YW fruit and nut bread ingredients we different from Floyd’s in that we cut the orange juice used as liquid by 1/3rd to get a more dough like consistency instead of a thinner batter.

We cut the sugar in half to 1/2 C – as a diabetic I don’t put a cup of sugar in anything, plus, the last change to3/4 of dried cranberries from 6 oz of fresh cranberries means that less sugar was needed since dried fruit is more sweet than fresh.

We built our levains the same way as always  The YW levain was slow compared to the SD even though both starters had been refrigerated for the same many weeks since they were fed last.

So we ended up retarding the SD for a bout 6 hours longer than the YW.  The SD levain fully doubled in the fridge after its lat feeding but the YW showed  little rise after it hit the cold.  So we took the YW levain out of the fridge 4 hours before the SD one and put both on a heating pad to get them to 82 F. 

When both had peaked we started the 2 off at the same time by autolysing the dry ingredients with the liquid for 1 hour before mixing and doing 3 sets of slap and folds and 2 sets of stretch and folds when the re-hydrated cranberries and walnuts were incorporated into the YW dough on the first stretch and fold.

Once again the YW proofing lagged far behind the SD bread, even though it had tons of sugar and sweet orange juice to fed on.  The SD proofed and was ready to bake in 5 hours on the counter after the last S&F but the YW took 11 hours and it never fully proofed with it still being 1“ below the rim of the tin when I finally gave up on it and baked the bread at 11 PM.  All proofing was done on the heating pad.

 We baked the SD in Big Old Betsy - GE regular oven that was preheated to 550 F with mega steam supplied by two pans filled with lava rocks and half full of water that were placed in the oven when it hit 500 F.   The SD was jingly and looked like it might over proof as the oven heated up so we refrigerated the dough in the basket for the 45 minutes it took to heat up the oven

15 minutes after Betsy beeped tell Lucy she was at 550 F, we took the SD out of the fridge, un-molded it onto a parchment covered peel, slashed it with a pairing knife and slid it onto the bottom stone that is 12 “ below the top stone. 

It sprang and bloomed very well for being so close to what we thought was near 100% proof.  The color was a little on the pale side though so we baked it to 208 F instead of our usual 205 F

It’s not bad color but it still didn’t look as boldly baked as we would have liked for that higher than normal internal temperature.  The crust also blistered well and was crisp as it left the oven only to soften as it cooled.

The crumb was open, glossy, soft  and moist but no more than last Friday’s bake that had twice as much whole grains in the mix.  What was noticeably different from last weeks bread was the taste

Not nearly as much sour tang or complex flavors – exactly what we thought would happen without the extra whole grains and long retards of levain and dough.  It is still a fine tasting bread

The big surprise was the YW bread.  After giving up on the proof on the heating pad at 11 hours at it only showing a 50% proof, it sprang like crazy in the oven, easily doubling in volume and splitting widely down on side.  This has happened one time before and I should have known to slash the top!

Pork sirloin sandwich in the making with the SD bread.

The bread was baked in the mini oven at 350 F without steam but it was brushed with butter after it came out of the oven to soften the crust and give it even more buttery flavor.  With all the sugars in this dough, it baked up a very pleasing dark brown.

Breakfast with the fruit bread French toast 

For so much spring the bread had a slightly open crumb which surprised me even though were a lot of cranberries and nuts in there to hold the holes back.   That YW can be deceptive in the proof and explosive in the oven - when you least expect it be that way.  YW is still less tame and predictable for me after a year and half baking with it.

Slicing the brisket

The taste of this bread is better than I thought it would be.  I don’t miss the missing sugar and orange juice but it could have used more orange zest to make it pop.  We like this brad very much for the Holidays as Floyd thought.  We are also glad we baked it ahead of time to make it will be better later when guests will be here for Thanksgiving.   This bread finished up 5 hours after the long low and slow smoked meat.

Sunrises are just as good as...

I almost forgot that pork sirloin isn’t like butt or shoulder and only needs to smoked to 150 F on the inside because it is so lean and caught this one at 160 F – very tasty, sliced very thin…. something you can’t really do with brisket which is way less lean, smoked to 185 F and cut in thicker slices.  The good thing is that they took the same amount of time it the smoker since the beef brisket is so much thinner than the pork sirloin.

The sunsets!

SD BBQ Bread Formula

YW, Orange Cranberry and Walnut Thanksgiving Bread Formula

I’m not sure exactly but Pate Maison has to be one of them.  The great thing about Pate Maison is that it is true to its name.  As master of your house, you can put what ever you want in it so it is like your favorite loaf of bread you invented and like the best.

I only make this rich dish once a year, right before Thanksgiving, and it is a large one made in Lucy’s largest soufflé.  Before baking it weighs over 4 pounds, just in various sausages, bacon, ham, beef and chicken livers alone.

The other ingredients are a caramelized mix of 1 large onion, 8 oz of crimini mushrooms, 1/4 of a bell pepper, 1 small carrot and rib of celery all cut into cut into sticks.  The greens are a mix of parsley, 2 green onions and a little bit of arugula and chopped Swiss chard.

 A half a stick of butter is used to sauté 3/4ths of the 1 pound 4 oz of chicken livers in (3minutes only) with some thyme and 2 tsp of pepper and 1 garlic clove.  Cut; 8 oz of your favorite ham  into sticks and 2 hard boiled eggs cut in half.  The sausages were 8 oz each of fresh; Mexican chorizo, hot Italian, beef boudin, andouille and pork country breakfast all home made.

You hold back 1/4 of the ham sticks, 4 chicken livers that are uncooked and chopped in half and the eggs so that you can decorate middle of the pate so when sliced it is a stunner visually.  The remaining bulk of chicken livers are liquefied in a food processor.

To assemble you mix, the caramelized onion  and mushrooms, red bell carrot and celery sticks, green onion, arugula parsley, Swiss chard,  3/4 ths of the ham sticks and the liquefied sautéed chicken livers in with the sausages with a large heavy spoon along with 2 T of brandy and 1 T of dry sherry. 

Line the soufflé with the 12 oz of smoked bacon slices making sure they are long enough to cover the top when the soufflé is full of pate.  Put half the mix in the bottom and then decorate the middle with the reserved egg, ham sticks and raw chicken livers and then cover with the rest of mix and fold over the bacon to cover the top.

Make sure to place the covered soufflé (I have a lid but you can use foil) in a jelly roll pan to catch the copious amounts of fat that will be rendered as it bakes at 350 F for 2 1/2 hours.  Take the lid or foil off with an hour to go to brown the bacon on top.

As it cools put a plate on top and turn the soufflé over squeezing out as much fat as you can. Then leave the pate on top and weigh down with something heavy, I used large enchilada sauce cans.  When cool, keep the weight on and refrigerate overnight.

Un-mold after 12 hours in fridge and cut the huge pate into 8 wedges and freeze them to be ready anytime during the Holidays!  Now if Ski was like me he would take half to the smoker for an hour of smoke just to put the cap in the bottle and have a different pate to choose from!

 My favorite topping for my favorite bread - it must be close to the holiday season for sure!  Happy Holiday Baking!

 And yes.....You can have it for breakfast if no one is looking!  The innocent looking lunch has a sandwich what I am sure is even illegal in Canada - A Pate, Pastrami, Pumpernickel, Paddy Melt with Brie.  It might be the most delicious sandwich Lucy has dreamt up lately - certainly the most decadent.

After last Friday’s bake of 2 different breads from on dough we decided to do only one this week.  We upped the whole grains to 38% from 20%  and used 8 different grains in the home milled portion of the flour.

In keeping with out recent process, we sifted out the 25% of hard bits and used that for the first feed of the multigrain levain and the 2nd feeding was the part of the 75% portion.

Once the levain had risen 25% after the 2nd feeding, we refrigerated the levain for 24 hours to bring out the sour.  We started the sprout at the same time as the levain and the berries had cited nicely after 30 hours.

We autolysed everything else except the salt, sprouts and seeds for 2 hours.  The dough liquid was unfrozen cranberry re-hydration liquid and scald liquid left over from last weeks bake.

Once the autolyse met the levain and the salt was added, we did our usual 3 sets of slap and folds of 8, 3 and finally 1 minute on 15 minute intervals.  We did 3 sets of stretch and folds on 15 minute intervals and incorporated the multi-grain sprouts during the first set and the sunflower and pumpkin seeds on the 2nd set.

The dough was then pre-shaped and shaped as an oval and placed into a rice floured basket, bagged and immediately placed in the fridge for a 12 hour retard.  We used a little less levain this time hoping to be able to take the dough out of fridge and give it 1 ½ hours to warm up instead of baking it right out of the fridge.

After 12 hours of cold the dough had risen 65% but it would be a little more than 2 hours before it was at 85% and ready for the steamy, 550 F hot maw of Big Old Betsy - between two stones.  After 2 minutes we reduced the temperature to 500 F and 2 minutes after that we went down to 475 F.

After 15 steamy, total minutes we took out the steam and reduced the temperature to 450 F, on convection now, and continued to bake for 15 minutes.  We rotated the bread every 5 minutes until the bread registered 203 F on the inside when the oven was turned off.  When the bread read 205 F it moved to the cooling rack.

The bread sprang, bloomed and browned nicely with some nice blisters showing.  The mahogany color of the crust was likely due to the cranberry re-hydration liquid.  The crust stayed crispy as it cooled and was very tasty.  The seeds were a great contrast to the open soft and moist crumb.  It was more open than I expected too a 40% whole grain and all the add ins.

This bread tastes , sour nutty and complex with just a hint of sweetness to counter any whole grain bitterness.  We actually like this bread as much or more than last Friday's fine outcome.  It comes of as a special everyday sandwich bread that most all would like.  Perhaps Lucy is starting to get the hang of this non pumpernickel baking:-) This is some fne bread all around.

Formula  

First salad greens from the winter garden

Greens become a salad

Last week's 20% whole grain bread wih scald for comparison.

We had Owlloween this year.  My daughter and I always carved a traditional pumpkin for each Halloween until she went off to college so the last 4 years no pumpkin carving….but this year she was back and being a Chi Omega we decided to carve a owl in this year’s pumpkin – since owls are something special of all Chi O’s.

We also decided to make this year’s Owlloween also our monthly hamburger night and we needed some buns.  Our last batch of poolish buns turned out well but didn’t have any SD in the levain for tasty keeping qualities and no cream cheese like this batch.  We changed some of the quantities of the other ingredients too but not by much and the buns were slightly smaller.

We followed the same procedure to make these buns.   We built the combo levain with a pinch of ADY and 5 g of SD in one build and, when it doubled after 4 hours, we were ready to go.  Once the levain was mixed with the 30 minute autolyse we did 3 sets of slap and folds and then did 3 sets of stretch and folds – all 15 minutes apart. 

After 2 hours of bulk ferment we divided the dough into 5 pieces and rounded them stretching them tight.  In two hours they were ready for the mini oven after brushing the tops with melted butter.

They went in a 425 F convection oven with a quarter cup of water thrown into the bottom of the oven for a burst of steam and baked for 6 minutes when the temperature was turned down to 375 F and the buns rotated 180 degrees to promote even browning.  5 minutes later we rotated the bibs again and in another 5 minutes they were done – total bake time was 16minutes.

As soon as the buns hit the cooling rack they were given another brush of melted butter.  We liked these buns better than the last batch.  These were more open and tastier with a slight SD tang.  Now all we have to do s use cream for the liquid and beat the heck out of them to make Pain de Mie buns next time.

We tried then out with a 80% lean burger, pepper jack and blue cheese, tomato, the first lettuce from the winter garden, caramelized; onion, mushroom and Poblano peppers and home made bacon with your choice of condiment and a side of potato salad.

Awfully nice loaded hamburgers but then there were the steamed in the microwave buns with home cured and smoked pastrami and pepper jack cheese with home made; Dijon mustard and dill pickle version……  also very good.

Angry Owl On Fire

Lucy says she wants to have Owlloween every day and we agree!

Formula

Teketeke Bread

teketeke got me going with my YW a couple of years ago and I have helped quite a few others, as she helped me, to get theirs going. Here is what I basically sent them but fixing all the spelling and grammar errors I could find.  Hope this will help all who want give YW a shot – it is so worth having another child in the kitchen.

 teketeke's post on YW is a good one if you scroll down far enough when the pictures start to appear again - way down. She is a great YW baker from Japan and I bugged the heck out of her to get my YW going.  Worked first time too - and she is a master and I named my first original YW concoction after her as thanks!

The idea is to get a slightly acidic base to start from, be a little on the warm side temperature wise, don't use any sugar - use honey instead, use bottled water, open the lid often, right before shaking and get some fresh air in the jar by fanning it with a piece of paper, shake the container often and be patient - like starting any other wild yeast

The fruit you start with matters. I started mine with orange and tangelos from the back yard because they are acidic, I left the skins on the pieces for one day to inoculate the water with the wild yeast on the skins and then replaced the fruit with skinned oranges and tangelos because the skin can be a little toxic to the yeast. - but I would do it differently today.

Teketeke's Japanese White Sandwich Bread

You want to make sure the fruit you use is organic thus no fungicides and herbicides on the skins and it has to have the skin on. What you want to do is get an organic apple and some organic raisins. People have their own opinions as to which ones work best but using both is really the cat's meow. Don't wash the apple or the raisins since the yeast you want is on the skin. I use a plastic 14 oz re-purposed peanut butter jar for my YW container but anything with a screw top lid will work.

Take 20 raisins and mash half of them. Take half an apple, leave the skin on, take the stem and base off and core the seeds out. Chop the 1/2 apple into 1/4 inch cubes. Mash half the apple pieces. Save the other half of apple by rubbing the cut side with lemon, lime or orange juice and refrigerate it.

Place all the 1/2 apple and raisins in the jar including the mashed portions. Add 1 T of orange juice. Fill jar 3/4 of the way up with bottled mineral or reverse osmosis water that is absolutely chlorine free. If you are using other tap water then pour it into an uncovered container 24 hours ahead of time so the chlorine can dissipate.  Do not add any honey at this point.

Keep the jar warm around 78 -80 F. I used a heating pad with kitchen towels folded on top till I got the right temperature and then covered the whole shebang with another towel to keep the heat in.

For the first 2 days, every couple of hours, open the jar fan some new air in it, close the lid shake the jar vigorously, loosen the lid a tad to let CO2 out and let it sit on the heating pad that way till you do it all again.

Yeasr Water Babka

On the 3rd day add 1 tsp of honey.  Keep up the fanning, shaking, loosening the lid till day 4. By that time, after you shake, the mix should bubble, easily be visible and remain for awhile. The jar lid should hiss as compresses CO2 escapes when you open the lid after shaking it.

After a week or so you should have some nice YW to bake with. To know if it is ready just make a levain with 50 g or the yeast water and 50 g of flour and see if can double in volume in 6-12 hours.

YW/SD multigrain bagels

Each week after the beginning week, strain everything out of the jar. Put 3 T of old YW back in the jar with a few pieces of old fruit say 4 raisins and 4 pieces of apple. Add more fresh raisins and half a diced apple you put in the fridge (you don't have to mash them up anymore).

Add 1 T of honey and fill 3/4th full with water. Leave on the counter. The next day it will be ready to build a levain with again. After it settles itself in, after a couple or three weeks, you can then refrigerate it 4 hours after feeding it and it will be ready and peaked to make bread after 2-3 days in the fridge. I now feed mine every 3 weeks and keep it in the fridge all the time

YW/ SD combo levain multi-grain with scald and seeds - YW will open the crumb of any usually heavy crumb.

You can replace any SD levain with YW.  If the recipe calls for 220 g of levain just use 110 g of YW and 110 of flour to make it. When it doubles it is ready to go about 6 hours or so. If you bake a lot like Janet does, or a little like me, when you use the YW just replace it with new bottled water and a little honey shake it up and leave it on the counter for a couple of hours before refrigerating.

 Happy YW baking.

YW/ SD Durum Ricotta with pistachio pumpkin and millet seeds.

For this pizza crust the girls wanted to go back to our Focaccia Romana  crust that has garlic rosemary and sun dried tomato.  I said OK but didn’t tell them that the dough would be SD instead of their favorite poolish one.

We had pinched 40 g of fully ripe 100% multi-grain levain from last Friday’s bake and then fed it 40 g each of AP and water making this the 5th feeding for this levain.  We let it sit on the counter for 2 hours and it easily doubled.

We autolysed the AP dough flour and water for 1 hour, then mixed the levain and salt in  to make a shaggy dough.  After two sets of slap and folds, 5 minutes and 3 minutes, the dough had developed plenty of gluten strength.

We then did 3 sets of S&F’s on 10 minute intervals and incorporated the garlic, rosemary and sun dried tomato in the first pass.  15 minutes after the last S&F we immediately retarded the dough for 48 hours.

We let the dough warm up on the counter for 2 1/4 hours before stretching and rolling it out to a fairly decent round shape.  We brushed the crust with Mojo de Aho, docked it with a fork and then par baked it for 3 minutes on a stone with a stone above at 550 F.

Then the pizza white topped with, home made spicy sauce 5 kinds of peppers; (Serrano, Poblano, green, jalapeno and red), homemade pastrami and pepperoni to go along with; home made Italian very hot sausage (chucked habaneros in that), caramelized onions and mushrooms, green and red onions, steamed green squash and broccoli and 4 cheeses (mozzarella, Monterey jack, pecorino and parmesan).

The girls also put on some of the onion, sun dried tomato bruschetta with the regular sauce.  I tried and piece of their pizza and like this combination.  The salty, smoky  pastrami was a the killer topping for me.

The crust was super thin and it baked up very crisp - just the way we like it.  The girls didn’t complain that the crust was SD this time either - proving there is a God.   It is still their 2nd favorite crust after the exact same recipe except using a 12 hour poolish for the leaven instead of SD.  I like both equally well. 

Today’s lunch was Friday’s w bread bakes, one topped with the left over sausage and pizza sauce and grated 2 P cheeses and fresh basil the other the left over caramelized onions and peppers mixed with the sun dried tomato and onion bruschetta – with the standard veggies and fruits.

Formula

120 g of 100% hydration levain – 33% whole multi-grain

358 g of AP flour

253 g of water

10 g of honey

10 g of VWG

751 g  Total weight

 Overall hydration is 74.26%.  The dough also had 1 tsp each of minced garlic, rosemary and sun dried tomato.

Today's breakfast and lunchmade with Friday's bread

 and tomorrow's sirloin pastrami smoke after 24 hours of dying in the fridge after curing.